WWII-era mass graves discovered at a private property in Wrocław

"In the spring of 1945, the time did stop for many residents of Wrocław. The nearly three-month siege of Festung Breslau consumed tens of thousands of victims. Not only fighting soldiers were dying, but also civilians" - the Historical and Archeological Research Lab "Pomost" said in a description of their latest discovery.

It all started with a Polish Red Cross (PCK) report from 1947. The historians from "Pomost" collaborate with the PCK general management on a regular basis, and so they asked them for documents indicating the exact locations where exhumations had been carried out in Wrocław after WWII. In response, the researchers received an address, a rough sketch, and a list of names according to which civilians had been buried in the garden of a villa at Dickstein Street in Wrocław.

"Following this lead, we turned to Dr Grażyna Trzaskowska of State Archives in Wrocław, who showed us documents according to which the PCK, despite drawing up a report, had not carried out exhumations due to unknown reasons. We asked the chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance for permission to start work and then proceeded with exhumations, without any certainty if those graves were still there," head of the "Pomost" lab Tomasz Czabański told tvn24.pl.

The works began in March this year and took a few weeks. "The owners of the plot - a German-Dutch married couple - were aware that three soldiers had been buried in their garden. They didn't know about the civilians. They were quite shocked as we were opening further graves," Czabański said.

The exhumations were being carried out on a strip of land 100x10 meters. Three mass and several individual graves were located, containing exactly 128 bodies. The majority of them belonged to city residents who had lost their lives mainly as a result of Russian air strikes. Among them were clerks, craftsmen, older persons, and children. Family members, mothers with children, married couples, and neighbours were buried together in the common graves. Eight soldiers, mainly from the Volkssturm force, were buried alongside the civilians.

"All of them died in the space of approximately one month. As more bodies kept on coming, further graves would be dug. Judging by bone fractures, it's clear those people sustained injuries typical for explosions. We don't know why the cemetery was created precisely in that place, it is definitely certain it was supposed to be temporary. The residents were supposed to return to their homes after the war and move the remains to a proper cemetery. However, that didn't happen," chief of "Pomost" explained.

Thanks to the lab, at least several families received information about the fate of their ancestors who had died during the siege of Breslau.

During exhumation works, the archeologists found a variety of personal effects the residents of Breslau had on them in the final moments of their lives. Among the finds there were shoes, buttons, buckles, pins, medals, pieces of uniforms and jewellery, corrective glasses, receipts, and a watch. But the true time capsule was found in one of the graves in the form of a tightly closed bottle with documents inside, including a death certificate.

The exhumed remains were carefully extracted, secured and taken to a special storage at the municipal cemetery in Poznań. They will be buried once again in mid-September, but this time during a ceremony at the Military Cemetery in Nadolice Wielkie.